Interactive Rendering
See changes to lights, shaders and geometry update live in Maya or 3ds Max. Look development happens in the viewport, not in a render queue.
About Autodesk ArnoldAll Autodesk products
What it is, and why teams use it.
What Arnold is
Arnold is Autodesk's Monte Carlo ray tracing renderer, built to deliver predictable, photoreal results on the heaviest production scenes.
It ships inside Maya, 3ds Max and the Media & Entertainment Collection, so studios get a production renderer without a separate pipeline to maintain. Arnold handles enormous data sets, switches between CPU and GPU without changing the look, and gives artists interactive feedback in the viewport while they work. Storm FX supplies Arnold licensing and render node packs to film, episodic, animation and archviz studios across Australia and New Zealand, alongside the Maya and 3ds Max seats it runs in.
Where it fits
Storm FX supplies Arnold with Maya, 3ds Max and the M&E Collection, plus render node licensing sized for your farm. We'll talk through seats, nodes and hardware before you commit.
Key features
What Autodesk Arnold brings.
CPU and GPU, One Look
Switch between CPU and GPU rendering with matching results. Scale onto whatever hardware the farm has without re-lighting.
Built for Heavy Scenes
Memory-efficient handling of large data sets, deep instancing and procedural geometry. Arnold was designed for feature film scene complexity.
Hair, Fur and Skin
Optimised shaders and sampling for the hardest surfaces in character work, from groomed fur to subsurface skin.
Open and Extensible
Custom shaders, operators and procedurals through the Arnold API. Plugs into Katana, Houdini, Cinema 4D and pipeline tools.
Render Node Licensing
Batch and farm rendering through Arnold render node packs, sized to the studio rather than per artist seat.
Use cases
How it plays out in practice.
Feature and Episodic VFX
Studios such as Untold Studios use Arnold as the final-frame renderer across episodic and commercial work, from look dev through delivery.
Animated Features
Animation studios render character-driven features in Arnold for its stable, physically based results across hundreds of thousands of frames.
Archviz and Product Rendering
3ds Max users get Arnold as the default renderer for stills and animation, with the same tools used on film work.
Across industries
Where Autodesk Arnold earns its keep.
In production
Autodesk Arnold at work.
Talk Autodesk Arnold with a specialist.
Talk it through with a specialist who has lived your pipeline. No hard sell. That's been the deal since 1991.
Help Centre
Send us your questions.
Product questions, licensing, compatibility, deployment. Ask here and a Storm FX specialist will come back to you. Smart instant answers are on the way, and there is always a human behind this panel.